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Summary
Summary
Best-selling author Rick Riordan introduces this adventure by Roshani Chokshi about twelve-year-old Aru Shah, who has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school.
While her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales, she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur?
One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light , Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again.
But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them.
The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata , and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that ?
Includes a bonus PDF of the book's glossary.
Author Notes
ROSHANI CHOKSHI (www.roshanichokshi.com) is the author of the instant New York Times bestselling novel, The Star-Touched Queen , and its sequel, A Crown of Wishes . She grew up in a small town in Georgia and studied journalism at Emory University. She now lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. ARU SHAH AND THE END OF TIME is her middle grade debut. Her Twitter handle is @Roshani_Chokshi.
Reviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-Aru Shah embellishes her life a bit, but it's only to fit in with the seventh graders at Atlanta's Augustus Day School. While showing off at the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture (which is also her family's home), Aru ignites magic that freezes time, wakes the Sleeper, and gives Aru only nine days to gather celestial weapons to prevent the Lord of Destruction from ending Time. It turns out that the reincarnated demigod Pandava brothers don't have to be boys, and Aru meets up with Mini. The two, while not "related-related," are soul-related as Pandavas.with the fate of the world on their shoulders. With an amusing and crotchety pigeon as a guide, Ara and Mini face a series of adventures based in Hindu mythology. Narrator Soneela Nankani's friendly voice skillfully conveys both the humorous and serious as Aru, Mini, and sometimes the pigeon greet Lord Hanuman, Indra, Monsoon, Chitrigupta, Shukra, and others who help and hinder their quest. The PDF glossary on disc nine is helpful and enlightening. VERDICT An adventurous and empowering story, based on Indian mythology, for fans of Sayantani DasGupta's The Serpent's Secret and younger admirers of Riordan's demigod heroes and heroines.-Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Aru Shah is a lover of tales, and was hoping to survive seventh grade through spinning slightly altered tales about her life to classmates. When a group of friends confronts her at the Museum of Ancient Art and Indian Cultures about her lies, Aru Shah would do anything to get them to believe her. Even if that means taking their dare to light a lamp that wouldn't you know it? might bring about the end of the world. Readers will be delighted by this adventurous dive into Hindu mythology and the chance to cheer along a heroic young protagonist. Chokshi makes it easy to connect with Aru by showing her learn from her mistakes (with the help of a sarcastic sorcerer pigeon), and readers will experience wonder as they are met with such surprises as a forest of giant fireflies. This series starter also doesn't skimp on important lessons about friendship, family, and love. Chokshi is a talented writer who breathes fresh air into her mythological world.--Bratt, Jessica Anne Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IF A HERO who saves the world from a fire also happens to be the one who started the fire... is that person still a hero? That's the question posed by three new books for young readers, each featuring a heroine equal parts delinquent and valiant. In Lissa Evans's whirligig romp WED WABBIT (David Fickling/Scholastic, 256 pp., $16.99; ages 8 to 12), 10-year-old Fidge is so pent-up with suppressed emotions, her mother can't even give her a hug. ("It's like cuddling a cardboard box. You're all corners.") Fidge has good reason for her stiffness: Her father died only two years earlier; her mother is distractible and leaves her to manage her 4-year-old sister, Minnie; and Minnie herself is a deliberately lisping brat who badgers Fidge to read her favorite book, "The Land of the Wimbley Woos," over and over to her and her stuffed "wed wabbit." That maroon hunk of velvet is Fidge's nemesis, bought by Minnie the week after their father's death and blessed with a "horribly smug expression, like a clever child who knows he's the teacher's favorite." Wed Wabbit is Fidge's projection of Minnie: demanding, insatiable and callously oblivious to her father's absence. Every time she looks at Wabbit, we feel Fidge's strings grow tighter ... tighter ... Then Minnie drops her bunny while on a shopping trip. Without thinking, Fidge boots it into a car-filled street. Minnie runs after it. The strings have popped. As Minnie recovers in the hospital, her mother at her side, Fidge is banished to her cousin's house, where her guilt, shame and resentment all roil into a cosmic thunderstorm that can only mean one thing: Fidge is about to go down the rabbit hole. The rabbit, in this case, is quite literal: Fidge wakes up inside "The Land of the Wimbley Woos," lorded over by Wed Wabbit, now a 20-foot-tall tyrant king who speaks in a lispy, ear-shredding squeak and has oppressed the colorful garbagecan-shaped Wimbleys, whom Fidge must free in order to get home. As in "Alice in Wonderland" or "The Phantom Tollbooth," Fidge is dragged through a gantlet of absurdity, forcing her to engage with a fictional world she disdained. But as Fidge finds allies - her phobic cousin, Graham, who has his own atonement to make; more of Minnie's toys, which have come to life, including a bedazzled cellphone and a histrionic elephant; and the Wimbleys themselves, who have more dimension than Fidge anticipated - we sense Evans's deliberate paradox. Fidge's quest isn't the archetypal hero's journey. This is a crisis of her own making. But in the process of saving a world she once thought had no value, she begins to climb out of the box she's created for both herself and others. "What if I die?" one of Fidge's compatriots asks. "What if you live?" another answers. Living is the real hero's journey, Evans suggests, where in order to fix things, you might have to break them apart first. Like Fidge, the title heroine of Roshani Chokshi's ARU SHAH AND THE END OF TIME (Rick Riordan Presents/Disney-Hyperion, 355 pp., $16.99; ages 8 to 12) is both creator and destroyer. In stories like the Harry Potter books or "The Lord of the Rings," the beginning of the quest is a passive selection: Harry and Bilbo are chosen, plucked from their ordinary lives because it's "time." There's something refreshing, then, about watching Aru Shah barrel into her quest like a blindfolded bull, stopping the world on its axis because there are lessons she needs to learn. The first is to stop lying. A protagonist who stretches the truth is a bold choice: No one likes a liar, particularly one who lies so often. Aru lies to her classmates about where she lives (the annex of the Museum of Ancient Indian Arts and Culture, not a chic condo downtown), who her mother is (a museum worker, not a secret agent in France), where she buys her clothes (Target and Walmart, not "Tar-jay" and "Vahlmart," her imaginary European tailors of haute couture). But Aru has good reason for lying: She's desperately trying to fit in at her rich Atlanta day school, where her classmates mock her Indian clothes as a Halloween costume. Still, one lie is so outlandish - that she possesses a "cursed lamp" that can end the world - it brings her classmates to the museum, daring her to prove it. Unfortunately for Aru, it's her only lie that happens to be true. Despite her mother's warnings about lighting the Lamp of Bharata in the Hall of Gods, Aru makes a bargain with herself: "Just a quick light," she thinks, and she'll never lie again. Like Fidge kicking the rabbit, lighting the lamp is Aru's mortal error, but this time the punishment involves real consequences in our realm: the rise of the Sleeper, who will bring about an end to time unless Aru can stop him. Chokshi seems in her own race against time, given how much she sets to accomplish in this, the first of a planned quartet. "Aru Shah" is also the first title of the new imprint Rick Riordan Presents, spearheaded by the author of the hugely popular Percy Jackson series. After Riordan made Greek and Norse mythology accessible to young readers, his new venture broadens its horizons to underrepresented folklore. Starting with Hindu mythology - filled with ambiguities, abstractions and contradictions - is as nervy a move as Aru lighting the lamp. But just as her heroine learns to wield a bow and arrow, Chokshi has her own weapons : a skill for crackling prose ("A sharp sound cut the air, as if someone had dropped a handful of sewing needles"), and a main character who, despite her lies, is both endearingly funny and self-aware ("Maybe that's why superheroes wore capes. ... They weren't actually capes at all, but safety blankets. ... Because honestly? Saving the world was scary"). Most of all, Chokshi is wise enough to let Aru experience Hinduism, not explain it. A Karma and Sins office leads to a pool of reincarnation; Lord Hanuman pops in like Jiminy Cricket to send Aru on her way; a tourism poster for Lanka (the demon kingdom in "The Ramayana") winkingly promises "moments of gore"; allusions to Indian dance, dress, deities and traditions sit alongside references to Voldemort and Spiderman. Readers learn Sanskrit numbers, and why karma might best be explained by Justin Timberlake. With Aru at the helm, this roller coaster through Hindu culture never feels forced or pedantic, but instead like a new kind of myth - where a hero takes a hammer to the world to shine a light through its cracks. In Diane Magras's the MAD WOLF'S DAUGHTER (Penguin, 277 pp., $16.99; ages 8 to 12), 12-year-old Drest, who lives in medieval Scotland, shouldn't be on her quest either. When her father and brothers are captured by knights, her father's parting orders are clear: Save yourself and hide. But Drest is a ferocious heroine, and after finding a wounded knight left behind by the enemy, she conjures a plan to travel to Faintree Castle and exchange the knight for her family before they're hanged. Unlike Fidge or Aru, Drest comes with little self-doubt. She knows her enemy, she knows good from evil, and she knows what she's fighting for. In fact, she knows her family so well she imagines her brothers' and father's voices in her head ("Drest, lass, you must do something"). At first, it makes the novel slightly staid, since Drest is so capable: What could possibly get in her way? Even Drest's disobedience feels like the prelude to her proving that fathers shouldn't underestimate their daughters. A tale well trod. But see Magras's magic trick: Drest's self-belief isn't her strength but her weakness. Her father pre-empted this quest for a reason. He knew she was blind to the truth about her family, her enemy and the reason for their capture. Together, Drest and the reader are pulled into trap after trap, until it's clear we're in the hands of a master storyteller. "The Mad Wolf's Daughter" feels like an instant classic. Its warning resonates: There will always be those who start the fires and the heroes who put them out. But to find the truth, sometimes a hero has to set a fire herself.